


you drew stars (around my scars)

by okaynextcrisis



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26983780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaynextcrisis/pseuds/okaynextcrisis
Summary: Dani has a dead fiance and a Celtic knot on her wrist she can't bear to look at.  Jamie has a tattoo place.  The inevitable tattoo shop AU.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 18
Kudos: 493





	you drew stars (around my scars)

**Author's Note:**

> title from Cardigan by Taylor Swift, obvs

The only tattoo shop Dani knows is a pretty little downtown place in a clean, new-ish building, one she used to drive by when she met Eddie for dinner in the city.

She does not go there.

Instead, she thumbs past her phone's new wallpaper, the benign blooming flower replacing the candid of her engagement party. She googles "tattoos near me," and drives to the first hit.

It is not, she reflects, exactly a clean well-lighted place. The dingy walls may have been white when Reagan was president, but she doubts they've been touched up since. Books and magazines spill over tables and gather in the corners, collecting dust. The equipment, at least, is pristine...if far more surgical than Dani had anticipated. 

"Starbucks is three blocks down," a lilting voice calls.

Dani startles, badly. "What?"

A figure rises from a chair, lazily unfolding long legs. "You're lost, love," a girl who can't be any older than Dani informs her. "You missed the turn-off for your vanilla latte."

Her hair is cropped short, dark curls haphazard and the tiniest bit smushed in the back. Her jeans are full of holes and marked up with ballpoint designs. But it's her skin that is a riot of color: flowers and green tendrils snaking down one arm, a complex design encircling a a forearm. Dani can see something that might be a tail peeking out from under the collar of her flannel shirt, curling up her neck.

But it's her voice that captures Dani, the way her accent caresses the vowels, the insult almost an embrace.

"I'm here for a tattoo," Dani forces herself to say. "Today, if possible."

The girl's lip quirks. "Skip the butterfly and save yourself the money."

When Dani imagined doing this, summoning her courage, she assumed it would be a burly man giving her trouble, not a girl barely her own height. 

"Listen," she says, "I have a tattoo, and I can't afford to have it removed, and I can't look at it another fucking second, so I need it covered with something that doesn't make me want to claw out my own eyeballs, okay?"

The girl sighs, but comes closer. "Let's see the damage." 

Dani rolls up the sleeve of her cropped sweatshirt to reveal the Celtic knot on her wrist.

The girl whistles, low. "Wasn't eternity?"

"No," is all Dani can bring herself to say.

"Well," the girl says at last, "It'll hurt like hell, and it'll cost you. I'm Jamie. Let's get started."

* * *

Half an hour later, Dani is woozy from the pain, from days of holding back tears, from the floral scent of Jamie's shampoo. 

"Isn't there like a bullet to bite down on or a bottle of bourbon?"

Jamie shakes her head. "I'm giving you a tattoo, not open heart surgery."

Dani bites her lip.

Jamie softens. "It'll get easier."

Tears flood Dani's eyes, just like at the funeral, just like in front of all those appalled, black-clad mourners. "I don't think it will," she manages.

"Oh, shit," Jamie says, grabbing for a box of tissues behind her and thrusting them at Dani. "This...this is why I hate bloody couples' tattoos."

Dani tries to laugh. "So none of...all that," she gestures at Jamie's ink, "is for...someone else?"

She was going to say _a guy_ , but somehow she knows that wouldn't have been right.

"Fuck no," Jamie says with feeling. "People fuck you over, they leave, they make you wish they would--"

"They do everything right, and you still can't marry them, and then they die," Danie says, the words out of her mouth before she decides to say them.

Jamie's hand, the one not working the gun, reaches for Dani's. The brush of her strong fingers send tingles shooting across Dani's skin. "Saves you the bother of a divorce?" she offers.

It isn't funny, but Dani chokes a laugh, her tears receding. 

She doesn't let go of Jamie's hand.

* * *

"All done," Jamie says, hours, days, years later.

Dani can't help a flash of disappointment. She'd gotten...comfortable here.

"Don't you want to see it?" Jamie asks, eyebrows quirking.

She looks....almost nervous.

Dani steels herself. She will hate it, and she knows it. _It has to be better than thinking of Eddie every time I...._

But her arm, now, is simply magic.

Gone are the harsh lines of the knot; in their place are lush roses, some in full bloom, others just beginning to blossom. And in the center of the dark ink is one perfect, pink rose.

She starts to sob.

"Oh shit," Jamie says, grabbing for the empty tissue box. "Listen, if you hate it, we'll--"

"It's perfect," Dani manages. "It's..."

 _It's more me than I ever was with Eddie,_ she wants to say _. How did you see me better than he ever did?_

Instead, she throws her arms around Jamie. "Thank you," she breathes.

After a moment, Jamie softens in her grip. "It's just a tattoo," she mutters.

"It isn't." Not to Dani.

She releases Jamie, suddenly awkward. "Wow, it's...it's dark outside," she says, glancing out the shop's windows for the first time in hours.

Jamie is studying her Chuck Taylors. "Would you...I mean, we could have that bourbon now. If you wanted."

Since Eddie died, she has been flooded with invitations: for dinner, for coffee, for company that makes bile rise in her throat. 

But this...but this....

"I'll buy," she offers.

"You already did, love," Jamie laughs. "I told you this would cost you."

But maybe, as Jamie helps her into her coat, careful over the bandage on her arm, as they step out into the cold, crisp air together...

Maybe Dani has gained something, instead.


End file.
